Storms pummelled US states from Texas to Georgia on Tuesday evening and Wednesday A series of thunderstorms with near hurricane force winds and suspected tornadoes have struck the south-eastern US, killing at least 15 people in states from Arkansas to Alabama.
The storm system pummelled states from Texas to Georgia on Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
The system was forecast to hit Tennessee, Kentucky and North and South Carolina on Wednesday evening.
Eleven more people were killed in storms earlier this week in the South.
“Today is the day you want to be careful,” Greg Carbin, of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in the state of Oklahoma, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
Forecasters have warned the current storm system could worsen during the next few hours while making its way eastwards across the southern US.
US media reported a tornado near Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, just outside Washington DC, early on Wednesday evening.
Early on Wednesday, a police officer from Louisiana on a camping trip with his family in Choctaw County in Mississippi was killed by a falling tree while using his body as a shield to protect his daughter from the storm, Kim Korthuis, a supervisor with the National Park Service, told AP.
“We had people coming in telling us another storm was coming in about four or five hours, so we just packed up”
Austin Ransdell Alabama resident
The nine-year-old girl escaped uninjured, although scared and drenched, and was looked after by a campsite volunteer.
Mississippi was the site of seven more deaths on Wednesday, with a tree crushing one man in his mobile home and a truck driver dying after hitting a fallen tree.
The governor of Mississippi has made an emergency declaration covering much of the state.
Downed trees blocked roads and highways in both Mississippi and Alabama, hindering rescue efforts by emergency responders.
Austin Ransdell and a friend were forced to hike out of their neighbourhood near the city of Birmingham, in Alabama, after Mr Ransdell’s home was flattened by four trees.
Suspected tornadoes are being blamed for collapsed roofs and downed power lines across the South “The house was destroyed. We couldn’t stay in it. Water pipes broke – it was flooding the basement,” Mr Ransdell told AP.
“We had people coming in telling us another storm was coming in about four or five hours, so we just packed up.”
The weather service has not confirmed whether the damage was caused by tornadoes, but forecasters said winds blew as hard as 70mph (113 km/h) in the region, just short of hurricane force.
A women was also killed in eastern Tennessee on Wednesday when trees fell on her trailer home in Chattanooga.
Intense storms with suspected tornadoes ripped off part of a school roof in Georgia and blew out windows in a hospital, with the state bracing for another round of storms on Wednesday evening.
Storm systems have pummelled states across the southern US for weeks, with severe weather being blamed for the deaths of 10 people in Arkansas and one in Mississippi earlier this week.
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